In "The World According to Bret", we learn that this is a complex world - one where millions of lines wouldn't suffice to deal with the complexity of race in America, for example.
I believe the world is indeed very complex, though race in America doesn't look to be particularly so.
With races, it is all very simple: we have genes, and some have superior genes, while others don't. I've learned it with The President of the United States of America, so it must be right:
"You have good genes, you know that, right? You have good genes. A lot of it is about the genes, isn't it, don't you believe? The racehorse theory. You think we're so different? You have good genes in Minnesota."
How could Bret disagree?
30 comments:
Yeah, yet another bizarre group of statements from Trump. He has over 10,000 of them since he became president at this point (bizarre statements, misleading statements, false statements, lies, etc.). Do you think this one is in the top 1,000? Maybe. Top 100? I doubt it. But no, I'm not gonna go dredge up the 100 more bizarre statements so don't ask. :-)
Do I agree that the people of Minnesota have particularly good genes? No.
Bret,
Why not? I get this from Wikipedia:
"Over 85.0% of Minnesota's residents are of European descent, with the largest reported ancestries being German (38.6%), Norwegian (17.0%), Irish (11.9%), and Swedish (9.8%)."
Only the best genes. Even better than Trump, whose good German ancestry is a bit contaminated by his mother if Scottish inferior lineage.
I had no idea that genes have been assigned moral values. If there are good genes, are there bad genes and if there are, are they naughty or diseased or what? I laughed so hard when I read this. It reminded me of saying we had when we were kids (70 years ago) and somebody introduced a topic from left field otherwise known as a non sequitur, "what does that have to do with the price of tea in China"? Don't know where that came from either, but made us crack up.
Erp,
You mean you don't believe on Trump on this one?
Clovis,
I'm lost. Are you trying to get me to argue or defend something in particular? Being a devil's advocate I'm usually happy to oblige but I'm having trouble latching on to this one. Trump said something bizarre/stupid (again), is this really the specific bizarre statement you want to focus on? Ok, I guess, but spell out specifically what you want me to defend. And why do you think German, Norwegian and other northern europeans have "the best genes." Best for what? Getting sunburnt?
Bret,
You have black people on streets burning down buildings. They look to be somehow mad about race in America. You look to think this is all too complicated, but it really looks very simple: once you have in power a group defending their race as superior - and that's what Trump is doing in very simple words - it looks very natural that another set of people may revolt. What's complex about that?
It even doesn't matter if the particular reason for the riot in one city or another (e.g. if a particular killing by the police was justified or not) is important, the will to punch back what they see as oppression will make them take the first chance.
Maybe if Jews did a 'Jews Lives Matter' back in the 30s, they could have saved a few millions from the camps?
Actually, I take that back. They would probably only get killed faster.
Clovis, I don't know or care about what Trump said about genes since you supplied no context. Like the rest of us Americans, he can say whatever he wants.
BLM isn't about blacks, it's about destroying our representative republic and replacing it with poverty and elitism. It's not black people burning down the cities it's Soros et al's paid terrorists being bused from city to city.
That's why they wear masks so the face recognition software can't identify them. TV videos show a small group with some black faces in the center, but the longer shots show mostly fat white women.
You were here for some time. Did you see anything like what they say on the lefty media. Black people are normal people like the rest of us.
Actually Bret, I hate to be a chauvinist, but the goodest genes are from Albania. Isolated from the stone age, only the best (looking) and the brightest survived -- We're a very small group and rarely cause trouble. :-}
You have to understand how Clovis got short-changed in the gene
department. Very tall - 6'2" at least, slender, criminally handsome and charming with a beautiful smart wife and three happy smiling gorgeous kids. He lives in a part of the world known for its outstanding beauty from mountains to beaches. Plus that he's very smart and a Physics professor at a prestigious university, so you can understand why he would be jealous of those superior Nordic genes.
As we say say in Albanian, Oy Vey.
Clovis,
Ahhh. So that's your point: you believe race relations are simple. And apparently Trump is the focal point of all that's bad in race relations.
But not only that, the whole story is that whites are evil and oppressive so therefore blacks lash out. Nothing more. No nuance. No diversity (all whites are the same, all blacks are the same). You don't have to talk to any whites or any blacks because you already know that all 200+ million of them think exactly the same and you know exactly what that is. And even if there was diversity of thought within the races, it makes absolutely no difference in understanding race relations.
And apparently no politics are involved or have ever been involved in race relations. Neither democrats nor republicans have ever used race relations as an issue that can be exploited to gain power.
And the media always reports everything perfectly objectively and factually and never ever print anything false or misleading.
And there's apparently no history or evolution to race relations. No civil war fought (at least partly) to free slaves. No civil rights movement in the 1960s. Nope. Blacks are and always have been in chains. They're still in chains and whipped and have to do the white man's bidding or else they'll be lynched.
And they're not allowed to emigrate to countries who would take them with open arms and give them a much better life. Places like Brazil maybe?
And blacks, given their inferior race according to whites, are kept out of school and not allowed to learn to read and write. And they're certainly not allowed to go to college and they're certainly, certainly not given any preference for college admissions.
So yeah, what was I thinking? A trillion words - how silly! It can be boiled down to 9: "whites bad; blacks oppressed; blacks mad; so blacks riot!"
That's it! Nothing more, nothing less, nothing has ever or will ever change.
God how I like such a simple world!
Erp,
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Clovis, I don't know or care about what Trump said about genes since you supplied no context.
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That's pretty unfair, I gave the link and it was easy to follow it in order to check up the videos (short or long - the man in in a rally speaking for 2 hours).
It is hard to fight the impression you are running from my question, dear Erp.
Bret,
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So yeah, what was I thinking? A trillion words - how silly! It can be boiled down to 9: "whites bad; blacks oppressed; blacks mad; so blacks riot!"
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Actually, you still made it more complex than necessary. I argued only the "blacks mad, so blacks riot!" part.
By my comment on Jews circa the 30s (they would be dead faster by revolting), you could deduce I don't think blacks are all that oppressed. The fact they are revolting and not being killed shows it: they embraced the "all equal under God" thing and are acting upon it.
Down here in Brazil (the place you maybe want them to migrate to) they wouldn't be so lucky. We kill blacks at a far greater rate than you guys.
Clovis, I don't watch videos except of kids or kittens. All I know is Trump told the audience they have good genes. Why, in what context I don't know?
Ask your question. I have to reason to run away from it.
my comment above, it was past my bedtime when I wrote it and meant to say "there is NO reason ...
Erp,
So you don't believe there are populations with better genes than others?
Define better.
Yeah, better for what?
A goldfinch has better genes than me for flying. I have better genes for designing and building robots.
If we wanna stick to mammals, a whale has better genes for diving deep into the sea, I have better genes for designing and building robots.
If we wanna stick to primates, an orangutan has better genes for climbing, I have better genes for robots.
If we wanna stick to humans, there are (nearly) certainly some combination of height genes that would be better for playing basketball, and I probably have a better set of genes for designing and building robots than some people.
Of course that last statement is extremely contentious. I know many people who will readily admit that genes come into play at least to some extent for the vast majority of animal traits (including many human ones like height) but are certain with absolutely no doubt that genetically all humans have the exact same intelligence and behavorial characteristics and any divergence is solely based on environmental factors. I know another set of people who believe that genetics might have some small effect regarding human intelligence (and other behaviors), but those genetics that might possibly make a difference have absolutely no correlation with geographical ancestry and therefore definitely certainly absolutely no correlation whatsoever with ethnicity or race. Both groups believe that evolution explains everything EXCEPT once the first brain of homo sapiens was formed, all evolution stopped for the brain and everything that has anything to do with intelligence and human behavior.
I find those beliefs unlikely and that they are becoming more unlikely by the day given the accelerating understanding of the human genome and Genome Wide Association Studies (GWAS) applied to intelligence and human behaviors.
But that doesn't mean any particular set of genes is objectively better than any other set. For example, in Trump's "racehorse" comment, racehorses may be faster than other horses but they also tend to be nervous, anxious, unfriendly and sometimes downright mean and nasty. I consider them inferior for anything I would be interested in related to horses.
Not so fast Bret, I haven’t tried my hand at designing robots, but that doesn’t mean I can’t design a better one than you.
For openers, I would bring the most highly desired element into the equation — diversity. Not only feminism, but ageism can be checked off and if I give some thought to it, I could probably bring in a whole bunch of victimizations against women from when I was girl.
🤨
I’ll get back to you with my designs for robots* and list of grievances.
* they’ll look a lot like R2D2. He’s my fav.
Clovis, I very much resent your calling me dishonest, I haven’t said a word about this subject except to ask you to define ‘better’ as you used it. Apologize or don’t address me again.
Erp,
Sorry Erp, I will rewrite the comment.
Bret,
Trump's comment has two elements to it: (i) the racehorse theory, and (ii) the fact that good genes were what allowed the white people of MN to conquer that land (his comment is coming from this line of reasoning, as you can check in the video).
The racehorse theory is something Trump touched many times before. He often declared he had good genes. His comments on this line are quite clearly coming from an eugenist point of view.
Then we have the point about the land. Well, MN was no empty land, it had people living there and they aren't the ones with good genes, since they've lost it right?
I mean, if you want to digress like Erp and press lipstick all over this pig's face, you can pretend you do not get the meaning of his words. But if you want a honest conversation, he is quite clearly saying these set of white people ruled the situation thanks to their good superior genes.
Now, I hope we cleared that before we can follow your point:
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f we wanna stick to humans, there are (nearly) certainly some combination of height genes that would be better for playing basketball, and I probably have a better set of genes for designing and building robots than some people.
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It is pretty amazing that you have a better set of genes for designing stuff that never existed in the history of humankind. How come your genes were selected for that?
Clovis,
Do you deny my assertion? In other words, do you think that every human on earth has a genetic endowment that, given a good upbringing and environment, would be at least as good at designing and building robots as I am?
Bret,
You answer a question with a question.
I believe every individual on Earth expresses his genes in such a diverse way that it makes no sense to connect his genetic material with generic activities such as designing and building robots - to conflate it with genes on height, which obviously impacts a very specific activity such as baseball, is a very poor argument.
Ohps, I realize baseball is a different sport than basketball. My genes probably made me make mistakes in spelling that one, given the determinism I must ascribe to them if I follow Bret here.
Bret, I hope you realize that my comment about designing better robots is tongue in cheek
Clovis,
That's why I asked my question. Since you "believe every individual on Earth expresses his genes in such a diverse way that it makes no sense to connect his genetic material with generic activities such as designing and building robots" then we simply strongly disagree and there's not much reason to debate it at this point since it's not provable one way or the other. That there could be genes for height and other characteristics but not genes for, say, "mathiness," is lightyears beyond what I can grasp. I apparently don't have that particular set of genes enabling understanding at your level. :-)
It might be provable in 20 years and we should revisit it then.
Clovis wrote " [Trump's] comments on this line are quite clearly coming from an eugenist point of view."
Clearly eugenist?
Hmmm. Not clear to me but I guess I can see why you would think that.
Bret,
There is a reason they call it "evolution". It is supposed to be a process guided by external pressures.
For how long people have widely been using math? More to the point, how long *your* ancestrals have?
If memory serves me well, your grandparents were Ukrainian jews right? Post-diaspora semites with nearly 2 thousand years of mixing with east european blood, in a particularly remote and poor area of Europe back then. Meaning the majority of your ancestry could barely write, much less do math, up until at least 3 hundred years ago in the best case scenarios.
What would have selected for 'mathiness' for this particular lineage?
I can find indigenous lineages in Mexico whose ancestry was doing more math and astronomy than yours - their descendants are now working your fields and losing their jobs to your robots.
Winners always try to paint themselves as superiors. They can only fool themselves, the winners of today were the losers of past. The richest countries on world now are made by what Romans considered to be barbarians.
Clovis wrote: "More to the point, how long *your* ancestrals have?"
I don't think that's any point at all. Either all people on earth have exactly the same genetic endowment and therefore natural talent related to engineering (for example, designing and building robots), or there is a distribution, where some, all else being equal, have a greater natural talent for engineering (for example, designing and building robots) than others.
The exact evolutionary path to get there is immaterial. My ancestry* is immaterial. I fully agree that many have more mathy ancestors than me. I didn't say I was the best roboticist in the world or even a better than average one. I simply said that I probably have a better set of genes for developing robots than some people. How many is some? Maybe 10? So out of 7+ billion, if there is a distribution instead of everybody being exactly equal, it is probable that I have a better natural talent robotics than 10 out of 7,000,000,000+ people. It's also probable that I have a worse genes for natural talent for robotics than 10 other people. My point is only that it's a distribution and that everybody is not exactly equal.
But if you believe that genes are such that even though height, weight, hair color, etc. all do vary because of genes, but things like natural aptitude for engineering do not, then we simply strongly disagree.
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*My older daughter did 23 and me and they found her to be 80% ashkenazi jew and we immigrated to north america from towns at the intersection of modern day Poland, Lithuania and Belarus. Pretty far from Ukraine, but doesn't really matter. As you're probably aware, through Jewish history of the last two millennia, literacy was required/strongly encouraged for every male, not just the elite, and though certainly centuries went by in some areas with very low literacy, from the middle ages on literacy (especially religious but also general) among male jews was pretty high. European Jews (ashkenzim) also tended to go into trades (and things like banking) more than their non-Jewish counterparts.
My ancestors in particular were merchants/shopkeepers as far back as can be remembered (sometime in the early 1800s) and very possibly long before then. And they certainly were very literate in multiple languages.
So it might be argued that there was some mathiness evolutionary pressure on my ancestors for some number of dozens of generations, perhaps more. I, however, won't argue that because it has nothing to do with my point, which is simply that I believe there is a distribution of things like natural aptitude for mathiness and engineering.
'You have black people on streets burning down buildings.'
Not so much compared with white people. One thing about history is that while you can ignore it you cannot change it:
https://www.amazon.com/Wilmingtons-Lie-Murderous-White-Supremacy/dp/0802128386
'I believe there is a distribution of things like natural aptitude for mathiness and engineering.'
I do not. Charles Joseph Singer, in his 'History of Technology'wrote something that struck me as so obvious that nobody can see it: that for thousands of years a huge proportion of the technological innovation came from a smallish area of northwest Africa and southwest Asia, but for the past 1,500 years or so, very little.
This suggests to me environmental not genetic explanations.
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